Five-Ring Circus

by Jon Cleary

  Many of the ills of the world have been perpetrated by criminals; Evans recognized a lucrative source of income, something Thomas never did. He had met Madame Tzu through a lawyer friend, sized her up for what she was but figured she was too smart ever to need his services. He had never met Guo Yi till now.

  “Hello, Scobie,” he said, coming into the interview room, “what persecution are we offering now? Mr. Guo? I’m Caradoc Evans, your saviour and friend.”

  “At five hundred dollars an hour,” said Malone. “G’day, Caradoc. We’re questioning Mr. Guo about his whereabouts last night.” He explained what had happened last night.

  “You were shot at? Someone tried to kill you?” Evans was incapable of looking shocked; but he looked genuinely sympathetic. “It would have been a tremendous loss, Mr. Guo. Inspector Malone is one of our more admirable policemen. Isn’t that so, Sergeant?”

  “Cut out the bullshit,” said Clements. “We think Mr. Guo might of pulled the trigger.”

  Evans had remained standing, his briefcase on the table but with his hand still on it, as if he expected both himself and his client to be gone in a moment or two. Now he sat down, undid his jacket and prepared himself for argument. He was broad and bald-headed and beetle-browed; he had candid blue eyes that somehow told an opponent nothing. He was formidable, as Malone well knew.

  “May I have a little time with my client?”

  Malone and Clements got up and went out of the room. “Ten minutes, Doc.”

  Out in the main room Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen had just come in. Malone looked at them and Gail shook her head. “No Miss Li. She was gone, but we’d have been too late anyway. The Feds were already there.”

  “The Federal Police?”

  Gail gave him the bad news. “They told us we’re out of the game.”

  “You’ve heard nothing, have you?” Malone asked Clements.

  “We’d be the last to know, wouldn’t we?” Clements’ disgust was plain.

  “If Canberra’s got into the game—” Malone ground his teeth. Then he said, “If anything comes in from Greg Random or Headquarters or anywhere, I don’t want to know. Not till I’ve nailed Mr. Guo to the wall.”

  “You think you’re gunna do that?” said Clements. “Our mate Caradoc isn’t gunna let him talk.”

  Sheryl opened her handbag and produced the magazine of bullets. Two are missing, as you can see. Ballistics might be able to match them with the cartridge cases PE gave you this morning. Sometimes the magazine marks the cases as they slip up into the chamber.” Malone gave her an enquiring look and she grinned. “I used to go out with a guy from Ballistics. Gun talk was his idea of foreplay.”

  Malone laughed, glad of the momentary relief. “You’ll do me, Sheryl. But old fellers like Russ and me couldn’t keep up with you modern girls . . . I’ll show this magazine to Mr. Guo, then send it to Ballistics. Maybe your boyfriend can help us.”

  “He’s no longer the boyfriend.”

  “He wasn’t sweaty enough,” said Gail, and the two girls laughed. It was nothing, an irrelevant moment of banter, but Malone was glad he had come out of the interview room. He needed the sound of a laugh or two.

  When he and Clements went back into the interview room, Evans and Guo looked like old friends. They were sitting back relaxed, ready to play cards. Malone sat down, switched on the video recorder.

  Evans looked up at it. “What’s that for? So soon?”

  “Just to keep us all honest, Doc,” said Malone. “I’ll start with the bad news for your client. His corroborative witness, Miss Li, that he was home in bed with last night, has done a bunk. We can’t find her. It may interest him, too, that the Federal police are after her. It looks as if she is going to be deported. That surprise you, Mr. Guo?”

  “No,” said Guo, bland as cream. “Your government is always deporting people. For no reason at all.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Canberra has its reasons this time.” Then Malone laid the magazine of bullets on the table. “Recognize these?”

  “I told you before. I don’t have a gun.”

  “Does Miss Li? A 32-calibre gun with a silencer, for instance?”

  His gaze was as steady as that of a sightless man. “Not that I know of.”

  “My client,” said Evans, “doesn’t have to answer questions on Miss Li’s choice of armaments.”

  “Armaments? Come on, Doc. Who do you think you’re representing here—Vickers? Let me tell you what we really think. We’ve had five murders in the past week, all of them, we think, connected. There were also the pot shots at me last night. Your client is high on our list of suspects in all those murders. Now we don’t know how much he told you in your ten-minute confab, but I’ll bet my bottom dollar he hasn’t told you everything. Did you tell him about General Huang?” He looked at Guo. “No? About Miss Li’s brother being bumped off? No? You look peeved, Caradoc old mate. You’re defending a client who hasn’t taken you into his confidence. Or you’re losing your touch, just like the Welsh rugby team.”

  “Don’t let’s talk sacrilege. I can hear the keening in the valleys from here . . . May I have another few minutes with my client?”

  Clements switched off the recorder and the two detectives stood up.

  “Work on him, Doc,” said Malone. “Impress on him he’s on his own—his girlfriend has left him. And I wouldn’t rely on his other friend Madame Tzu, not if I were him.”

  Guo had been sitting with folded arms, head bent; but now he looked up. “Where is Tong Haifeng?”

  “You think he’ll help you?” Malone shook his head. “He’s on our list of suspects, too. We’re bringing him in now. Good luck, Doc. Don’t let him show you how they built the Great Wall of China.”

  Out in the main room Malone went across to Gail Lee and Sheryl Dallen. “More work, girls. Go down to the Olympic site and bring in Tong Haifeng.”

  “Why didn’t we pick him up earlier?” said Clements behind him.

  “Because I’ve been one-eyed. That bugger in there fired at least one of the guns that’ve gone off in the past week. But now—now I’m thinking there might be a conspiracy. Maybe someone has formed their own little Triad. Triad—isn’t that a threesome?”

  “Not in the way you think,” said Gail. “And where does that leave Madame Tzu? If there’s any conspiracy she’ll be in it. Do we bring her in, too?”

  “Not yet. Just get Tong—” He heard the phone ring in his office. “We’ll hold Guo till you bring in Tong.”

  He went into his office, picked up the phone. It was Greg Random: “Watch your language when you hear what I’m about to tell you—”

  “I’m ahead of you, Greg. Canberra has shoved its oar in.”

  “Not in. Up. Up your arse. Canberra doesn’t care about the Olympic Tower schemozzle. They couldn’t care a stuff about the murders. Good relations with China is all that counts—what’s a few homicides against millions of dollars in trade? Trade, not love, makes the world go round.”

  “Don’t start quoting poetry or philosophy at me. I’ve had enough of that.”

  “The girl goes back to China, the fifty-one million dollars goes back with her, General Huang doesn’t get another mention and we quietly forget the murders of Mr. Sun and Mr. Feng and the kid out at Bondi and—” there was a rustle of paper as he looked up a name “—and Mr. Nidop at Kirribilli.”

  “And what about me? I nearly had my bloody head blown off last night.”

  “Scobie—” Random had genuine concern for everyone who worked for him, especially someone as long as Malone had. “Do you think I’m enjoying passing along all this bullshit? I know how you feel. But the message has come down the line—though it’s not for general consumption. So don’t go broadcasting it or you’ll be in deep trouble. That’s a personal warning from the Commissioner. He’s just come from a session with the Premier. For once Macquarie Street and Canberra are in agreement—but for different reasons.” There was silence at Malone’s end of the line; then Random said qui
etly, “Scobie, do you hear what I’m saying? Lay off.”

  Malone took his time. “Yeah, I hear.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Nothing.” He hated lying to a friend trying to be helpful. “Just tidying up some unfinished business. You remember what it was like when you ran this show.”

  It was Random’s turn to be silent for a moment; then: “You’re trying to screw me, mate.”

  “Greg, I heard what you said. There’ll be no charges laid. But I just have to ask a few questions of a bastard I’ve got here in the interview room. I think he fired the shots at me last night.”

  The silences were growing longer. “Okay. I’ll log my call as half an hour from now. You can be a pain in the bum at times. Just don’t do your block with whoever you’ve got in there.”

  Malone hung up, stared out through the window-wall of his office at the main room. Half a dozen detectives sat at their desks, working on cases where there was no interference from higher up. Domestics, a bank customer killed in a hold-up, an old man bludgeoned to death for his wallet by a druggie: simple murders that never bothered Macquarie Street or Canberra. Nothing that would disturb the flow of trade. He spat into a tissue and dropped it in the waste-basket.

  Clements came into his office. “You look as if you’ve been shafted.”

  Malone gave him the news. “We’ve got half an hour to shaft young Mr. Guo.”

  Clements took a long moment to contain his anger, then he drew a deep breath. “This is when I think the KGB had the right method.”

  Malone somehow managed a grin. “Let’s see how our gentler approach works.”

  “Trip him up and I’ll accidentally fall on him. A knee in his gut might help.”

  “Maybe we should ask Caradoc for some advice. He played rugby, he’d know all about legal mayhem.”

  Evans and Guo, heads close together, were deep in conversation when Malone and Clements re-entered the interviewing room. They drew apart as the two detectives sat down and Malone said, “Has your client decided to be sensible?”

  “Ah, come on, Scobie old chum. Being sensible has never been a sensible defence. That would do us lawyers out of a job.”

  Malone looked at Clements. “You’ve got to admire him, Russ.”

  “Criminal lawyers,” said Clements. “You’re half a crim, Doc.”

  Evans smiled, unoffended. The Welsh had been suffering insults since the time of Owen Glendower; they had learned that coal dust and poverty took precedence as irritations. “Every man to his talent, Russell old chum.”

  “Do you still want Mr. Evans to defend or advise you, Mr. Guo?” said Malone.

  “Yes.” Guo was bland and composed again. But he had taken off the Olympic tie and it lay, neatly folded, on the table in front of him. A flag to be surrendered? Malone wondered.

  “He will say nothing,” said Evans, “till he has seen his girlfriend, Miss Li.”

  “So they can co-ordinate their stories? You’ve forgotten what I told you—Miss Li has shot through. Vamoosed. If she’s picked up she’s not going to be allowed to talk to Mr. Guo or anyone, she’s going back to China under escort. She’s a Federal Police case now, not ours. You understand what I’m saying, Mr. Guo? If Miss Li was involved in all this she’s left you holding the can.”

  Guo blinked, then bit his lip; all at once the composure was gone. He looked around, as if seeking escape; but the room had no windows, the door was shut. Then he turned to Evans, but was unable to say anything. His hand, of its own accord, reached out and crumpled the tie. The bright colours spread between his fingers like pus.

  Evans took control: “I notice you didn’t turn on the recorder again, Inspector. Why?”

  Malone had hoped the lawyer would not have been so sharp-eyed. “I thought your client might feel less harassed. Are we harassing you, Mr. Guo? All we want is the truth of what’s been happening. Has Miss Li been more involved in this than we thought? Has she been playing you for a patsy?”

  Guo was puzzled: “A patsy?”

  “A fool, Mr. Guo. Women do that sometimes to men.” Glad that Lisa and Claire and Maureen couldn’t hear him. And Gail and Sheryl. He leaned forward, feeling the adrenaline coming alive, a sluggish stream suddenly beginning to flood. “Whose idea was it to kill General Huang and Mr. Sun and Mr. Feng? And Mr. Chung, too? All four of them?”

  “That’s a leading question,” said Evans, putting a hand on Guo’s arm. “You don’t have to answer.”

  “I think he’s already answered it.” Malone had seen the quick sidelong glance at the lawyer, seen the fingers tighten on the Olympic tie. “It was all Miss Li’s idea, wasn’t it? Every one of the murders, including the attempt on me?”

  Malone was aware of Clements’ surprise; he was holding tight on his own. Li Ping had always been only on the periphery of his investigations; the margins of almost every crime were populated with shadows. He had let himself concentrate too much on the too obvious. He remembered a police profiler telling him about Occam’s Razor, a fourteenth-century philosophy which, when applied to modern crime, meant that the obvious answer was usually the correct one. Well, not this time. The bloody obvious had let him down.

  “Why did she get you to kill General Huang and the others? Who shot her brother, Mr. Zhang, and Mr. Nidop? Was she the one who tried to kill me last night?”

  “I think it’s time we closed up shop,” said Evans, gathering up his briefcase. “You either charge my client, Inspector, or we walk out.”

  There was a knock, the door opened and Andy Graham put his head in.

  “Phone call, boss. It’s urgent.”

  II

  It was Fadiman, the site manager from Olympic Tower, his voice a mix of excitement and exasperation. Obviously this was a project that was having more problems than the building of the Suez Canal; he sounded as if he was longing to be building a woolshed out the back of Tibooburra. “Miss Li, Guo’s girlfriend, is down here, bloody near berserk. When I told her Sergeant Clements had been down here and Guo had gone off with him, I thought she’d go off her head. A couple of our guys had to hustle her out of the office.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Somewhere on the site. She’s in the building somewhere, running around yelling for her other mate, Tong. She’s got a gun—”

  “Shit!” Malone signalled to Clements, who had come out of the interviewing room. “Have you called anyone else?”

  “No, I called you—you’re the one who knows what this is all about.”

  “Don’t call anyone—not yet. Not unless she starts shooting. We’ll be down there in ten minutes, no more. Tell everyone to stay away from her—get your men out of the building—”

  “Oh Christ—”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Fadiman sounded as if he was already packing for the trip to the Outback. “Madame Tzu has just driven in. She’s got—wait a minute—she’s got Mr. Aldwych and Mr. Chung and a Chinese guy with her—”

  “Don’t let them get near Li Ping!”

  “How the hell am I—”

  But Malone had hung up, was pulling on his jacket, shoving his hat on his head. He hurried out of his office into the main room, pulled up as Guo Yi and Caradoc Evans came to the doorway of the interviewing room.

  “We’re leaving, Inspector—”

  “No, you’re not, Doc. You can go, but we’re holding your client.” He signalled to Andy Graham. “Take care of Mr. Guo, Andy.”

  Guo frowned. “What’s happened?”

  Evans patted his arm. “Stay calm, Mr. Guo. What are the charges, Scobie?”

  “I’ll let you know within the hour. We’re bringing in his girlfriend, Miss Li.” He looked at the young Chinese. “You’d better have another talk with Mr. Evans. I’m afraid Miss Li is going to pour shit all over you for not being there when she wants you.”

  Guo lifted his chin, not in defiance but like a man trying to keep it above water. He turned back into the interviewing room. Evans said qu
ietly, “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” said Malone. “Talk some sense into him or he’s on his way back to China.”

  “And if he stays?”

  “Point out to him we don’t have the death penalty here. I believe there were five thousand executions in China last year.”

  He let himself and Clements out of the security door. So far Clements had said nothing, but as they waited for the lift he said, “Where is she?”

  Going down in the lift Malone told him what little he knew. “Gail and Sheryl will be down there now—I don’t want them taking her on on their own.”

  “Hadn’t we better get the SPG guys in?”

  “No,” said Malone emphatically. “This is my case—our case—and we’re sticking with it. If it develops into a siege situation, then we’ll call them in. But for now—”

  “If things go wrong and we finish up in the shit, how do we explain it to Greg Random?”

  “We don’t. I’ll get fired.”

  They were hurrying out to the unmarked car. “And what happens to me?”

  “You’ll have been obeying orders from your superior officer and you won’t have known about Greg’s order to lay off.”

  Clements got in behind the wheel, put the blue lamp on the roof. “Let’s hope Miss Li comes in quietly.”

  “She will,” said Malone, and hoped he sounded convincing.

  With the light flashing and the siren wailing, with Clements twice pulling out to drive on the wrong side of the road, the drive from Strawberry Hills took six minutes. As they approached the Olympic Tower site Malone said, “Righto, cut out the light and the siren. Let’s arrive without fuss.”

  Clements glanced at him. “There’s gunna be fuss whichever way we arrive. What are you gunna tell Greg Random?”

  “I’ll think of something.” But not now. Now, at last, he had his hands on the throat of the case.

  They pulled on to the site, with Malone gesturing to the gateman to close the wide gates behind them. A cement truck was about to pull in, but the gateman waved it away. The truck stayed where it was, blocking the gateway, providing some sort of screen from the traffic passing behind it.